Was it Daniel Pipes’ endorsement
of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that put the Holocaust-denying hard-liner over
the top in Iran’s recent presidential "election"? Or was it the massive
– and fairly
obvious – fraud committed by the Ahmadinejad camp?

Joking aside, at least for the moment, one has to wonder: what else did anybody
expect? Iranian elections have hardly been models of democratic governance in
the past. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, prefigured the probable upshot
of all this when he announced
that a victory for leading opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi would amount
to a repudiation of him personally – and the crackdown
we are witnessing could only have come about as a direct result of Khamenei’s
order.

The U.S. government – or, at least, one branch of it – didn’t help matters
much. Their fast-tracking
of draconian new sanctions on Iran right before Iranians went to the polls
could only have helped Ahmadinejad. How’s that for timing?

In any case, the Mousavi challenge was a frontal assault on the legitimacy
of the current regime, and they have responded just as tyrannical elites have
always responded, with deadly
force and brazen
fraud.

Ahmadinejad has led his country into an economic dead end, with record
unemployment, gas
shortages, and a high
inflation rate. That, combined with U.S. President Barack Obama’s remarkable
outreach to the Iranians – a video
message of friendship, an offer to negotiate with Iranian leaders without
preconditions, and an unprecedented acknowledgment
of the U.S. government’s role in overthrowing
Mohammed Mossadegh’s democratically elected government in 1953 – would have
sounded the death knell of the current gang if the election had been allowed
to proceed unobstructed. As it was, the hard-liners sealed
off Iran from the rest of the world as Mousavi’s overwhelming victory became
apparent, placed the candidate under house arrest (or so
it seems from numerous unconfirmed news reports), shut down the Internet,
and unleashed their
"Revolutionary Guards" on student-led protest demonstrations.

The swiftness of the hard-liner response, however, can be deceiving. Apparently,
there was confusion in the Ahmadinejad camp as Mousavi’s victory loomed large.
We are getting reports
that the authorities informed Mousavi of his impending election victory before
the polls had even closed, and he was advised to "moderate" his victory
speech for fear of provoking a violent response from Ahmadinejad’s supporters,
many of whom are members of the "revolutionary" militias. The reformist
newspapers, too, were told they were not allowed to use the word "victory"
in reference to Mousavi when reporting election results – but at least they
were allowed to report it. Or so they thought.

Shortly
afterward, however, these same newspapers were taken over by armed assailants,
Mousavi’s election headquarters were surrounded by military forces under the
hard-liners’ command, and the regime’s thugs were called out into the streets
– where they met Mousavi’s mostly youthful supporters in bloody clashes throughout
the country.

Like Juan
Cole, I will readily admit that I may be wrong about the veracity of the
hard-liner coup narrative, and I may very well have fallen for what some are
calling the "North Tehran Fallacy" – the idea that Western reporters
were lured into believing that Mousavi was the winner because they are all based
in a relatively affluent and Westernized part of the Iranian capital. (Cole,
by the way, denies
the validity of the North Tehran thesis, though it seems plausible to me.)
Yet that really has no relevance to the main point of this column, which is
this: America has no business intervening in Iran’s internal affairs, including
its presidential election. Period.

To do so would play right into the hands of Iran’s hard-liners – and their
neoconservative cheerleaders (both overt
and covert)
in this country. Whatever support the kooky Ahmadinejad had managed to garner
– according to leaked and unconfirmed reports, about 30 percent of the total
– was due almost entirely to external factors, principally the U.S.-led campaign
to strangle
the Iranian economy and rile
upethnic
and religious
minorities. This, in turn, has redounded to the hard-liners’ benefit, as anti-Americanism
– long a staple of Iranian politics – has reached record levels throughout the
region.

So far, the Obama administration has kept its collective mouth shut pretty
tight – except, of course, for Joe
Biden – and that’s a good thing. What isn’t so good is that the White House
will almost surely be forced to pronounce some sort of verdict or judgment on
the apparently fraudulent election results. Criticism, however mild, coming
from Washington, will surely be used by Ahmadinejad & Co. as a pretext to
declare a state of "emergency" and engineer a total crackdown. And
the possibility of a dramatic showdown between the two Iranian camps is increasing
by the moment: Mousavi is reportedly
calling for his followers to take to the streets in protest – although there
is some fear
that this may be a trap set by the regime – and what follows may very well turn
out to be an Iranian replay of what happened in China’s Tiananmen Square, at
least as far as the rest of the world sees it.

What this means, in terms of U.S. foreign policy, and the building "crisis"
around U.S.-Iranian relations, is that the prospects for a negotiated settlement
of the outstanding issues between the two countries have darkened considerably.
Yes, I know Obama has declared
his intention to soldier on in the "outreach" effort, but this will
become increasingly untenable – and make it fairly easy for him to backtrack
– as the authority and legitimacy of the Iranian government continues to deteriorate,
as it will.

And we should not forget that, in spite of public assurances from the U.S.
president that the administration wants peace, is prepared to negotiate, and
that it’s time for "a new beginning," the Americans continue their
covert
action operations directed at Tehran – as recent
bombings and other disturbances in the eastern non-Persian provinces have
shown. Is the U.S. involved in the current street fighting in Tehran and other
major cities? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to have this suspicion confirmed
in coming days. After all, in 2007 Congress appropriated $400 million to destabilize
the Iranian regime, and who’s to say this program isn’t bearing fruit?

U.S. military leaders are vehemently
opposed to launching yet another war in the Middle East, and their stubborn
resistance to the idea – floated
by Bush’s neocon camarilla in the latter days of the Decider’s reign – scotched
the War Party’s attempts to make sure Obama inherited a Middle East aflame.
Yet their efforts will have reached beyond the previous administration’s grave
– and succeeded in dragging Obama down with them into hell – if events in Iran
provoke an ill-considered response from the U.S.

Whenever there are election "irregularities" anywhere outside the
U.S., American government officials have a bad habit of getting up on their
high horses and lecturing the rest of the world on how best to conduct their
own internal affairs. Never mind that the U.S. itself has only two officially
recognized political parties, both of which are subsidized with tax dollars,
and that any potential rivals must jump through a
number of hoops to even get on the ballot. We’re a legend in our own minds
– the world’s greatest "democracy" – and anyone who questions this
dubious claim is immediately charged with "anti-Americanism."

Yet even if that were not the case – even if our democratic procedures were
flawless – that still wouldn’t give the U.S. government any standing to pass
judgment, because how Iran conducts its presidential elections is not a legitimate
concern of the U.S. government. The idea that the occupant of the Oval Office
must pass moral judgment on all events, including other countries’ elections,
is a byproduct of America’s imperial
pretensions and delusions of "world leadership."

The Israel lobby, which has been pushing for a U.S. confrontation with Iran,
is revving up its engines
even now to push harder for increased sanctions and other provocative moves
by the U.S. Obama, I fear, will prove unable to resist all that pressure, though
I’d love to be proven wrong.

As far as I can see this "The Iranian election was fraud!" mantra is based only the loser's claims. Why would we trust Mousavi and not trust Ahmadinejad? (Or why would we trust either one?) I'm trying to figure out why the Iranians would vote for a man whose basic campaign promise was that he'd energetically kiss American ass.

All polls (in the Western press) that I read before the election showed Ahmadinejad leading by two to one and then he reportedly won by two to one. So what's the surprise? Also — before the election, I read, over and over again (in the Western press), that Ahmadinejad had the support of the poor people of Iran and Mousavi had the support of the rich people of Iran. Are there more rich people or poor people in Iran? That question can be answered by simple mathematics.

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to have more to go on than "The loser says he won — therefore it was a fraud" argument.

In 1936 on of America's greatest landslide elections was missed by the editors of Liberty Magazine who forecast a Landon win. They were honest men who based their prediction on a scientific poll. No one has ever questioned their sincerity. But they were dead wrong. They conducted the the survey by telephone and on election day tens of millions of citizens who did not have telephones voted.

All stories emanating from Iran emphasize the computer savvy of the Mousavi camp, their mastery of twitter and such in mobilizing support. The whole movement seems computer generated. Could it be that the millions of Iranians with computers were outvoted by the tens of millions without computers? Call it the Liberty Magazine effect.

The US Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions to finance the political destabilization of Iran. All they have to show for it so far is this Green Revolution in some upscale nieghborhoods of Tehran. Kermit Roosevelt would have gotten more bang for that number of bucks. He did 50 years ago for a lot less. But whatever the legitimacy of the election, and it may well have been fair, it is none of America;s business.

I am suspicious about the 'colour-coded revolution – Green this time. Was it assisted by some US agencies with a vested interest in having Ahmadinejad as a figurehead? Or perhaps by some other close and special firends of the US? The plan could havebeen as Hinkus said, to raise the expectations of a win by the Mousavi side and claim fraud if it fails to come to pass. If the Ayatollahs suspected US or other interference, that might explain the dramatic no-compromise outcome.

Considering that the U.S. Special Operations Command has been fomenting a campaign of terrorism in Iran, it appears eminently plausible that Mousavi is indeed the figurehead of yet another color-coded revolution backed by the U.S. Furthermore, the North Tehran thesis likewise seems eminently plausible to me, as well. Given the fairly brisk movements of Western-dwelling Iranians in and out of the country, there is ample opportunity for all sorts of propaganda for the consumption of the Western media. I'm quite certain that very few Westerners are canvassing the areas outside of Tehran. Moreover, the same brisk movements of Western-dwelling Iranians also provide ample opportunity for the political intrigue and coordination necessary in a color-coded revolution. The Iranians themselves seem quite convinced of such an effort, as can be seen in the recent conviction of Roxana Saberi for espionage.

Considering that the U.S. Special Operations Command has been fomenting a campaign of terrorism in Iran, it appears eminently plausible that Mousavi is indeed the figurehead of yet another color-coded revolution backed by the U.S. Furthermore, the North Tehran thesis likewise seems eminently plausible to me, as well. Given the fairly brisk movements of Western-dwelling Iranians in and out of the country, there is ample opportunity for all sorts of propaganda for the consumption of the Western media. I'm quite certain that very few Western reporters are canvassing the areas outside of Tehran. Moreover, the same brisk movements of Western-dwelling Iranians also provide ample opportunity for the political intrigue and coordination necessary in a color-coded revolution. The Iranians themselves seem quite convinced of such an effort, as can be seen in the recent conviction of Roxana Saberi for espionage.

I don't know about a North Tehran Fallacy as anything is possible, but I wondered in the beginning how an accurate polling of Iranians could take place with so much of the population being rural. For what it is worth I think the suspect American media put the poll out as a disinformation campaign just so that the post election results could characterize the election as fraudulent and the Iranian leaders as illegitimte. This will allow Barack to to pretend to be seeking peace while al the time expanding the war in The Middle East. The American military-industrail-media complex is once more leading us iinto war, by cranking out the propaganda so essential to convincing the public that war is the only solution. It is a page from the Israeli playbook , being repeated even now by Nethanyu, of pretending to want peace, but putting forth stipulations that make it impossible for the other side to accept. In a similar way Barack can say he tried for peace, but a recalcitrant and illegitimate Iranian government made peace impossible.

guys, juan cole might be better than bernard lewis but he is still just a western pundit.

if you look closely the polling up to this election was heavily in favor of ahemdnejad, who has done alot to improve the lives of irans rural population. some might call it buying votes, but the point is it paid off. mousavi jumped on the obama bandwagon post cairo and rode it alot farther than most thought he cuold but as a guy in a good article called "wishful thinking in Iran" noted, tehran is not iran.

Juan Cole is a "gatekeeper" whose criticisms are pale and weak, and will only be used to serve the agenda of Obama's Administration. It's telling — Cole criticized Bush stridently, but when Obama does exactly as Bush did, Cole offers support. With Cole, the only thing he needs to feel things are acceptable is to have a Democrat in the White House. It doesn't matter to Cole that the Democrat behaves as his Republican predecessor behaved. When that happens, Cole turns a blind eye to the Democrat's policies and acts. It's baffling if you think Cole is a detached scholar. But it's not confusing once you realize Cole is a mealymouthed partisan robot.

Cole believes in some myth of the noble Democrat. This point alone renders Cole's views useless at best. Nothing in America is as simple as to be fixed merely by swapping a Democrat for a Republican. Why? Because most Democrats are no different — especially at the Federal level.

i'ts georgia /ossetia all over again. another "revolution" with not loud and western media friendly people getting their rear ends handed to them by larger powers they should never have tangled with in the first place.

Articulate English speaking Anonymous author, in the heart of darkness (Tehran), publishes a pro-western, pro-protester, spinfest without quoting a single named source.

Anonymous Author quotes anonymous friends who quote anonymous whispers they heard in anonymous places around Tehran, and surprisingly, all the anonymous whispers are pro-western! Amazing!

All the Liberal Interventionists over there are in a patriotic Freedom and Democracy Fervor, ready to go over there and kill the Mullahs with their bare hands for daring to challenge Freedom on the March! It really is quite a spectacle, especially since most of them spend their time at Salon either having group therapy sessions regarding the Obama Betrayal, and vow never to be fooled again.

There must have been a lull in Abortion articles, so they filled it up with propaganda from the National Endowment for Democracy and their ilk. Joan Walsh keeps it classy.

I noticed that on the front page of today's Anti-War, there's the picture of Iranian police beating that one protester. I wonder why the word "POLICE" written on the back of his uniform is in English. Was there a surplus sale from the Army-Navy store or maybe Blackwater? Perhaps there's a logical explaination, but it certainly seems odd to me.

I'm afraid that Mr Raimondo's criticisms of Ahmadinejad's "economic" perspective might be assuming that Ahmadinejad sees "economic" issues the same way Raimondo does. Not everyone wants unbridled pirate capitalism, Mr Raimondo. Your economic views are the one place where I regularly disagree with you, because your views on pirate capitalism are the type the reward greed and sociopathic pursuit of money and profit at all costs. Ahmadinejad doesn't see the world that way. Why would he pursue an "economic" plan that suits you, then?

If there is a revolution, that's great, but I'm going to act as a cheerleader for either side regardless, unlike the Rabid Liberal Interventionists that infest sites like Salon, who heard whispers that lowly freedom loving protesters in Iran are on the march, and so Salon contributors have spent all day calling for the Mullah's heads on pikes.

I'll remain cynical and see what happens. I am not going to defend the Iranian Govenment, but I am going to take note when these protests don't pass the smell test with me and smell more like black ops color nonsense to feed the Freedom Loving Interventionists.

I wonder why any "non-compliant" country bothers to organize elections? Not only it doesn't matter what was the gap between candidates but, if the western-approved candidate loses, the inevitable outcome is internal turmoil.

Anyone knows you can't win with 50%+1 against the western endorsed pick. The response is the sieging of major cities and political institutions with fairly large numbers of people, very color coordinated, camping and marching. Ahmadinejad's side probably thought that if they widen the gap (until 5-6 days prior to the election there was no prediction of a close run then suddenly western media upped the ante) they'd silence their opponents ( + western media squirmishers). That's silly but is the best they could come up with assuming Ahm. would have passed the >50% mark anyway. If the opposition + the west hoped for a second round and Ahm.'s people "pushed" up the result so he wins without the need for a second round it could backfire. In any case, Ahm. should know there's only one "true democratic" choice – surrender.

Articulate English speaking Anonymous author, in the heart of darkness (Tehran), publishes a pro-western, pro-protester spinfest without quoting a single named source.

Anonymous Author quotes anonymous friends who quote anonymous whispers they heard in anonymous places around Tehran, and surprisingly, all the anonymous whispers are pro-western! Amazing! The author even quotes a "leading cleric" without bothering to name the cleric (kind of like those "unnamed senior government officials":

A leading cleric has already announced that we are no longer ruled by the Islamic "Republic" (jomhuri e Islami) but the Islamic government (hookoomat e Islami). Whether now or in a few months or years, the game is over.

All the Liberal Interventionists over there are in a patriotic Freedom and Democracy Fervor, ready to go over there and kill the Mullahs with their bare hands for daring to challenge Freedom on the March! It really is quite a spectacle, especially since most of them spend their time at Salon having group therapy sessions where they share their feelings about The Great Obama Betrayal, vowing never to be fooled again. Only to be fooled again, and again.

There must have been a lull in Abortion articles, so they filled it up with propaganda from the National Endowment for Democracy and their ilk. Joan Walsh keeps it classy.

I think john mcCain and eric cantor just said we are all iranians or something. I'm not kidding.

I hope I'm not tehran Bob here. I mean if there is some sort of revolution happening that'd be great, it's just that everything I know about iran tells me that this election's results make perfect sense and alot of liberals and neo cons are going to have egg on their face.

If there is a revolution, that's great, but I'm going to act as a cheerleader for either side regardless, unlike the Rabid Liberal Interventionists that infest sites like Salon, who heard whispers that lowly freedom loving protesters in Iran are on the march, and so Salon contributors have spent all day calling for the Mullah's heads on pikes.

I'll remain cynical and see what happens. I am not going to defend the Iranian Govenment, but I am going to take note when these protests don't pass the smell test with me and smell more like black ops color nonsense to feed the Freedom Loving Interventionists who always feel the need to "do something".

The liberal interventionists are falling over themselves to climb aboard the Cruise Missiles bound for Tehran. Let's just stop beating around the bush and get down to the business of doing to Iran what elites in Washington have wanted to do for 30 years: Punish Iran for its refusal kiss the ring of the Emperor.

After eight years of the insufferable Bush, Jr., now it's the turn of the liberal interventionists to help uplift the lowly people of this world by killing them with bombs and destroying their nations. Hey, now would be a good time for Obama and Hillary to bring repression of homosexuality of Iran. That should help tame any potential liberal opposition to an attack against Iran even more A lack of gay rights and "election fraud" clearly justifies U.S. aggression against Iran. Besides, the assault against Iran will be led by a smooth talking Democratic con man from Chicago, so it must be right the right thing to do.

I find Raimundo commentst o be straight out of interventionist play book :
" In any case, the Mousavi challenge was a frontal assault on the legitimacy of the current regime, and they have responded just as tyrannical elites have always responded, with deadly force and brazen fraud."

Deadly force? In the one shooting now publicized the Revolutionary Guard building was being attacked by the protesters. Does he not believe in self defense?

In some posted videos the police are being attacked and then respond with thier batons. The still photos cover only the baton weilding police.

Being the water boy for propaganda does not promote non-interventionism.

Yes, this is why I disagreed in part with Raimondo. His take on the matter is pro-meddler even if this site and Raimondo's general perspective are Anti-War. How is that explained, how is it consistent? Economic or political meddling OKAY, military meddling BAD? Then what is the justification for such a perspective? Corporal violence abhorrence, but psychological-economic-political violence permission? It's very inconsistent to me.

The troubles in Iran are long-standing. Part of the problem is a result of American meddling in the politics of the region. By indirectly supporting such meddling, Raimondo is basically saying he likes unrest and friction in Iran. I don't see why he'd make that point if he's anti-war.

I find Raimundo comments to be straight out of interventionist play book :
" In any case, the Mousavi challenge was a frontal assault on the legitimacy of the current regime, and they have responded just as tyrannical elites have always responded, with deadly force and brazen fraud."

Deadly force? In the one shooting now publicized the Revolutionary Guard building was being attacked by the protesters. Does he not believe in self defense?

In some posted videos the police are being attacked and then respond with thier batons. The still photos cover only the baton weilding police.

Being the water boy for propaganda does not promote non-interventionism.

I noticed the same. It's abnormal, it reeks of PhotoShop, or of private Mercs if not a digitally altered image.

IndigoRain

Mr. Obama, please stay out of Iran's affairs.

American meddlers reply: But we's a force for good in the world. We're the leader of the free world. We're Democracy's poster child. We must put our nose in Iran's business. We must. We must.

Please don't. Learn from your past mistakes, i. e. Mossadegh coup in 1953 that installed the Shah and led to 26 years of tyranny throughout Iran. Or Vietnam that led to the deaths of 58,000 Americans and 3 million Vietnese. Or more recently, the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq that has destroyed that country, has displaced 4 million Iraqis and may have cost a million Iraqi lives. Bottom line; when America meddles in the affairs of other nations, disaster usually follows, to put it mildly.

Let the Iranian people sort out their troubles. If they can't, yes, it's a crying shame—as are all subjugations of people's democratic rights that go on in many countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe, etc. But no matter how our hearts cry out for justice in Iran, butting into their affairs will inevitably make things worse.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].